Chrysanthemums
by wildcatt
Summary: Their eternity is a falling petal, an ivory ribbon, a glimpse of outstretched wings. Collection of Nejiten and Team Gai one shots in narutoverse.
1. Chrysanthemums

Written for the Nejiten LJ community's fanfic contest. Theme was 'losing control'.

**NOTE: Chrysanthemums are funeral flowers in Chinese custom.**

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**Chrysanthemums**

_It's snowing in their bedroom tonight._

-X-

Neji is sitting stiffly by the window when she arrives at their house, studying his hands in the pale glow of the overhead lamp. He watches the way his fingers grasp the black fabric of his trousers, pulling the material taut over his thigh; he examines the white scars that trail down the rough skin of his palm, testimony to the hundreds of battles he has endured and won, the countless lives he has taken.

"I came back to get my clothes."

He wonders why, then, he is unable to reach out with these hands and draw her close, where he needs her to be. She is leaning against the door frame when he looks up, an old suitcase in one hand and her keys in the other. His shoulders tense when he looks at her properly, small and worn out, with the telltale hint of red in her eyes. Neji forces himself to stand up. "They're ….. in the bedroom."

But of course she knows _that_. Neji grits his teeth and looks away, stops himself from reaching for her when she detaches herself from the shadows behind the doorway and steps gingerly into their living room. Her gaze drops, falling hesitantly on the tall, porcelain vase of white chrysanthemums by his side. He recalls that they are her favorites and suddenly feels an irrational guilt for having allowed them to wilt. He hasn't touched the flowers since she left three days ago to god knows where, a rucksack slung over her shoulders and her hair tumbling down her back. (Her favorite ribbons - the white ones that he gave her for her birthday - are still curled atop the dressing table in their bedroom. He hasn't touched those, either).

"I'll be quick."

Two years of living together, sharing a roof and a bed, and now as they try their hardest to look unafraid they suddenly find themselves two lonely silhouettes, stranded in the static void that stretches boundlessly around them. The second hand on the clock revolves jerkily and time slows to a wretched crawl. Tenten hesitates, biting her lip before striding quickly past Neji towards the stairs, starting when her suitcase scrapes jarringly loud against the dining room table.

"Sorry – I'm - being careless. Sorry." The words scatter uneasily behind her as she pulls the suitcase to her chest and hurries away from him, stiff-limbed and awkward from the strain of staying in control of herself.

Neji listens to her footsteps as they peter out above him and thinks that this is not how they should end. (But chrysanthemums are funeral flowers, and when he closes his eyes he can almost taste the lingering scent from long-dead petals that tint the air).

-X-

When Tenten comes back down he is waiting by the door, looking quietly out into the night. He turns when he hears the soft catch of her breath, sliding his body in front of the doorway because it is obvious that she intends to walk out of their home without a word, cleanly, like the way her precious blades slide in and out of flesh, leaving neat wounds. Neji wonders if she is about to become just that: a deep, clean cut, a knife between his ribs. She pauses a few steps from him and tightens her grip on the suitcase, staring hard at a spot somewhere near his right shoulder.

"Tenten," he begins quietly, keeping his expression carefully closed, "perhaps we should reconsider–"

"Please, Neji," she interrupts him immediately, pleading, her voice lilting up and cracking at the edges. "I'm leaving, alright? We discussed this last time, let's not do this again, please?" She is frightened, because to her _love_ has always meant _fear_ and she loves him, too much.

"I've changed my mind."

"I haven't."

And Neji understands even if he doesn't want to, because to _him_ love had always been a dull ache that reverberated of loss and grief, the faded grey that drenched his memories of Hizashi- until Naruto had picked up the first piece of his splintered heart and Team Gai mended the rest, fragment by brittle fragment. Then love had become glimpses of outstretched wings amidst blindingly blue sky, had become mornings drinking tea with his cousins, warm afternoons training with his team and evenings with Tenten's hand in his.

"This is foolishness," he states bluntly. "We need each other."

She recoils; he knows he has hit a nerve. It is precisely this _need_ that has kept Tenten afraid since before her genin days, even as her girlish smiles and cheerful demeanour bloomed and the steel slipped through increasingly calloused fingertips. To love her precious people meant to need; to need meant exposing herself to heartbreak and the possibility of ending up irrevocably damaged, broken, should they ever be lost to her. But Tenten is Kunoichi and she hoarded her fear away like black pearls in the dark, hid it under gruff words as she shook Lee angrily after he put himself in danger for Sakura during their first chuunin exam, veiled it behind the punch at Naruto on their mission to Bird Country, when she had been worried _sick_ for her friends.

"Neji – I – "

"Don't we?" he adds softly, probing. For an instance Tenten looks like she is about to cry. She shakes her head fiercely, soft brown bangs slipping before her eyes.

"Only as teammates," she tells him roughly. "We decided to live together from want, not need."

"So why are you leaving now?" He frowns, stepping closer to her. She moves away quickly, a hand shooting out to steady herself against the wall. "You...do not want me anymore?"

"That – of course that's not true, Neji - you know that's not what I mean." Tenten fumbles with her words, wishing for the hundredth time that she could have Neji or even Lee's eloquence. "I just – I can't -" she breaks off, struggling to gather any remaining traces of willpower. She has to leave, _now._

"You cannot?" he prompts, taking another step towards her. Tenten presses herself against the wall, eyes wild.

"Stop, Neji, go away. I can't – I _can't_ –"

"What is it?" Neji is becoming increasingly anxious but he forces himself to breathe, get closer to her. "What can't you do? If this problem is really so important to you, we can work on it together." His voice cracks almost imperceptibly. "We've _always _worked together… haven't we? There is no reason–"

"_No_," Tenten chokes out, suitcase falling to the ground as her hands come up to push him away. Neji grabs her by the wrists when they clench onto the white cotton of his shirt, pressing her gently back against the wall. She immediately jerks away from his grasp, rubbing her wrists agitatedly as if burnt. "I...I can't love you like this, Neji, don't you understand? I don't _want_ to love you anymore."

The words break against his skin and fall to the hardwood floor like invisible shards of glass. (Or perhaps they are merely chrysanthemum petals; Neji can't tell the difference anymore). He stares down at Tenten's forlorn expression and resists the urge to lean down and kiss her until she changes her mind.

Becoming a couple during their younger years had been completely natural to themselves and to those who knew them. No one had been surprised when they had announced their decision to live together - the Main House even permitted Neji to leave the Hyuuga compound and rent a house near the outskirts of the village, close to their old training grounds. It had been a good arrangement: Tenten enjoyed finally having someone to come home to from a mission after years of living alone in her parent's empty, echoing apartment, and she understood that what she felt for the Hyuuga was more than respect, more than friendship and love for a teammate. He was the childhood companion who had grown into something a little bit more, and she wanted him as a lover, definitely, but believed that she only _needed _him like she knew she needed Lee and her comrades and Konoha – just one more dusty pearl buried away in her dark. (Because Tenten is Kunoichi, and even if the concept of needing scared her she would deal with it like a Kunoichi should).

And yet - she had not counted on falling for him so hard.

The few years of dating that had seen her crush on the Hyuuga bloom into a more mature affection had melted into two years of living together, two years of simple domesticity that saw her finally understanding and gradually falling deeper and deeper in love with the man, until inescapably there came the morning she woke up next to his sleeping figure and realized that she loved him a little too strongly, needed him a little too much to be safe.

And that – that, she cannot take. Needing someone this badly is terrifying to the woman who has already lost all that she needed once in her life. Tenten found herself shrinking away from her feelings and hiding from Neji, until the spaces between them grew so empty and distant that Neji – prosaic, unromantic Neji - actually approached her about it with a flower clutched awkwardly in his hand and a demand to take her out to dinner so she could explain herself.

At which point Tenten informed him that she was leaving. (Because she had to leave, before it was too late. Because all her instincts told her to _run_, to preserve what self-sufficiency she had left in herself). The argument that ensued left Neji half-understanding and angry; he knew what it was to equate love with need and need with loss, but could not understand why she refused to give them a chance. Were their lives really to be governed by such things as fear?

It ended abruptly, when Tenten fled their home, a hastily packed rucksack slung over her shoulder.

"We need this, Neji. We've left this hanging for too long, we should spend some time apart, think about what we want." Tenten rattles off excuses fluidly, an exercise in self deceit. "We have to consider our duty, if we were wise or even right to –"

Neji slams his palm into the wall by her shoulders, knuckles draining white as his fingers dig against the concrete. "Enough."

An angry silence solidifies and shatters in between one blink of the eye and the next, and then his fierce gaze leaves her face as he leans down, breath hot against the pale skin of her throat. Honey brown eyes widen, irises contracting; Tenten inhales quickly when she feels loose strands of his hair trailing lightly against the bare skin of her arm.

"I...do not wish to hear more." Neji shifts his head so their cheeks graze gently against each other, flushed skin set alight and burning on contact. His free hand comes up, fingers fumbling along her jawline and tilting her face up and away until Tenten is suddenly staring straight into the blazing white ceiling light. She winces, momentarily blinded by the light and the heat of his touch, before throwing out a final plea to convince herself and Neji that her departure is inevitable.

"Neji, I am shinobi – I'm not _supposed_ to need anyone like this, not this way. It will only hinder me. Us."

"And yet," Neji murmurs quietly, and she starts because his hurt is suddenly, heartbreakingly tangible when he brushes his lips softly against the corner of her mouth, "and yet...that is the way I need _you_, Tenten."

Her eyes snap open but he is already moving away, a glimpse of pale skin slipping out of the open doorway and into the darkness outside. (And chrysanthemums are funeral flowers, but maybe Tenten has already spent far too long grieving for loves who have not yet abandoned her).

-X-

When he returns the living room is deserted, the suitcase gone. The door is still wide open, light from within coating the doorsteps in a rectangle of silver. Neji stands and gazes into his abandoned home, letting the night breeze strip the burning heat and tension from his muscles, leaving only a familiar dull ache, the raw hurt anchored in his chest. Tenten, he supposes, is already on her way to Lee's place, or maybe Sakura's, or Ino's – wherever she had crashed last night. Only this time her absence will be permanent, because he wasn't able to make her stay. He wasn't able to watch her leave him either, which was why he himself had left.

Neji walks slowly into the house and pauses. He feels something break within him when he turns and closes the door, gently shutting out the night and the only woman he has ever wanted to love.

And upstairs, a light switches on.

The soft click breaks the heavy silence in the house, faint light spilling down the stairs and illuminating the newly empty vase by the window. Neji freezes, his hands clenching tightly by his side. The sudden explosion of hope that blooms in his chest burns almost painfully, and suddenly it is difficult to breathe. Soft footsteps from above; he takes the stairs three at a time, stopping abruptly at the doorway to their bedroom. Tenten is standing by the curtains, looking out onto the countless roofs that stretch into the horizon, the tiny pinpricks of light flickering quietly in the night. The suitcase is open on the floor. Dead chrysanthemums spread brittle petals across the bed.

For a long, silent moment there is nothing he can do but watch the kunoichi before him, his gaze sweeping over the way her shoulders gently rise and fall with each quiet breath, the way she laces pearl white ribbons between calloused fingertips. Her hair is unbound, tumbling loosely down her back. (And chrysanthemums are funeral flowers, but death comes only once; afterwards there is eternity, and maybe, just maybe, eternity is what they have between them).

-X-

"Stay with me." It's more of a command than a question as usual, and yet this time there is a slight uncertainty that colours his voice. He needs her confirmation, so he reaches out and tangles her fingers between his. She doesn't answer but leans back against his chest, rubbing her thumb lightly over his knuckles.

Neji decides that it is enough.

She reaches for the chrysanthemums when he sits on the edge of their bed and pulls her onto his lap. The curtains are drawn closed; she leans her head against his shoulder and methodically plucks each pale petal from the dead flowers. His palm traces slow circles across her back as she allows the thin slivers of white to drop slowly from her fingers and drift to the ground in gentle pendulum arcs.

It's snowing in their bedroom tonight.

Tenten closes her eyes and thinks that they should not need each other this badly, and that perhaps they will be the ruin of each other one day. Then Neji leans down and buries his face in the crook of her neck, his arm wrapping tightly around her waist, and she thinks that perhaps –

- perhaps, she will be brave.

-X-

_And if we fall, we will fall as one._


	2. Summertime

**Winner of the LJ ten squared community's August theme of the month, _Changing Seasons. _I guess I just had the urge to write domestic bliss plus Team Gai. :P**

Could be considered as a sequel to 'Of Youthful Passion and Local Butchers'.

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Summertime

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The springtime of youth ended when Team Gai turned twenty-seven.

Adulthood had descended upon them years ago – in their Genin days even, some would say – but it was only now that they felt truly _older_ and childhood seemed but a distant dream, a lovely memory quietly receding like a wave from a sandy beach. Now the future stretched wide before them with a new promise, a new Sun that burned so brightly it almost seemed to flood away the shadows of their past.

It was summertime and the world was hot, lush, burning spears of sunlight arcing through the shimmering blue sky; the wind blew low and warm, whispering through a maze of bluebells before spiraling up into the treetops of the forest that skirted the west side of the field. The scent of moist earth, wild grass and summer flowers blossoming into their own distinct fragrances wafted through the air, light and sweet. Lee was bawling again, his tears wetting the thin fabric of Tenten's shirt as he lay sprawled across the grass with his face buried against her stomach.

"Shhh." The brunette patted him on the shoulder. "There's nothing to cry about, Lee." But her words were slow and lazy and her eyes were closed, shut softly against the bright haze that surrounded them. The boulder she was leaning against was pleasantly warm against her back and Neji was playing with her free hand, lifting it to his mouth as he lay on his side, head resting on her lap.

Lee snuffled. "I just thought - I just felt the baby moving and was overcome by the wonderfulness that is the youthful spirit residing in you, Tenten!"

Tenten smiled, glancing away to watch a dragonfly flitting over the few baskets she had prepared for their afternoon outing. "You couldn't have... ...I'm barely into the second month."

"Your child must be very advanced indeed," he told her seriously, solemn wide eyes blinking up at her. "I'm not surprised. Any child of Neji's and yours will no doubt grow up to be impressive Shinobi."

"I hope so," she murmured, taking a peach from the basket and biting into it slowly, savouring the sweetness on the tip of her tongue. She felt herself being pushed gently against the boulder and glanced down, amused to see Neji's hand inching up her thigh in a half-hearted attempt to nudge Lee's head off her stomach. The Hyuuga had always liked to monopolize her body and acted with mild jealousy even with Lee, much to the bowl-haired taijutsu user's dismay.

Juice ran down the pale length of her inner forearm, curving in with her elbow and converging in one pale pink droplet. Tenten lifted her arm lazily and licked it away. She caught Neji eyeing her hungrily and smiled, offering him the basket. "Peach?"

"No." He lifted himself up on an elbow, leaning forwards to kiss her on the chin. "You."

"Neji! But the baby!" Lee looked scandalized, his head shooting up a little in alarm. Neji took advantage of the moment and his hand crept over the part of Tenten Lee had previously occupied, stroking the gentle curve of her swelling stomach.

"Shh, Lee," Tenten rubbed her knuckles into his hair soothingly. _Tonight, _she mouthed over his head. "It's alright."

"But – "

"Come on, it's too hot to get worked up," she murmured.

"Neji will not be making any improper advances towards you tonight."

"None at all," she lied through her teeth. Neji merely looked a little annoyed.

"She's my _wife_, Lee." The unspoken words '_I have the right to make any improper advances towards Tenten whenever I want'_ hung heavily in the air.

"Your _pregnant _wife! What if you hurt the baby?"

Tenten closed her eyes again and leaned back, smiling as she listened to them bicker over her. Somehow both her hands had found their way into theirs - one on each side, one for each of her boys. (Because the truth was that these two would always remain only _boys _in her heart, no matter how tall they've grown or how many more battles they will win.)

The springtime of youth ended when Team Gai turned twenty-seven. Tenten doesn't really mind because it's summertime now, and because they're both still with her, still together, still young.

Still in love.


	3. Monster

**Mmm. I can never stay away from the Neji abuse for long. It's kinda fun. Yea. **

**I tried thinking of a better title, but my creative brain cells have died on me. Oh well. **

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**Monster**

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She hears the quiet scraping of sandaled feet on concrete as she sits on their bed, fumbling her hair loose from their buns in the sheltered darkness of the bedroom. The summer days are oppressively hot but the nights are cool; a light wind lifts the curtains and steals the heat from her skin. Tenten presses her palm against the cold glass as she looks out the window and sees Nara Shikamaru whipping by, mask in hand. The Anbu captain is tired, bloodied and clearly on his way home, a pronounced limp slowing his journey across the rooftops. She looks to the clock: two in the morning. Dim streaks of silver in the background tell her that the rest of the squad is finally back in Konoha after two weeks of absence.

_Neji._

The moonlight ripples like a thin wash of liquid silver across the hardwood floor as she pads quietly to the closet. She buries her face in the soft fabric of his sleeping robe, breathing in the familiar scent before taking it off the hanger and laying it on their bed. She shrugs on a jacket and makes her way down to the kitchen, curling onto a stool in the dark to wait for his arrival. (He never liked returning to find the lights on - they were too bright, left him too exposed after the nerve-burning necessity of constant alertness.) The faint glow from the street lamps seeps in from the crack underneath the front door; the quiet ticking of the clock fractures the silence.

He doesn't come.

Seconds turns to minutes turns to nearly an hour drenched in shadows and Tenten continues to watch the door, willing it to open, waiting for him to come home to her – but he doesn't, and the door remains shut. There is no fear that he is hurt - Nara would have come to her if Neji had been badly injured - but there is something else, a gentle heartache that is slowly unfolding in her chest because she knows why he is not here and she knows he's doing this purely for her sake.

Shinobi: they are not accustomed to being gentle, do not know how to touch with a lover's caress – have never found the time to be kind - and so they fight and win and break each other over and over and over again. Tenten is sick of the vicious cycle, is sick of remembering the way the hurt had slowly bled into his eyes when she had let him down. "It was a mistake," she tells the door loudly. "I know better now."

The door doesn't answer. Neji isn't here to listen.

She forgets to tie her hair up again when she leaves. Ivory tinted ribbons gleam faintly on the kitchen table and the door is left swinging wide open, the lithe silhouette of the kunoichi already just another shadow melting into the dark.

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He is a monster when she finds him. She stumbles out from the dirt path into the clearing and her breath hitches at the sight of him, standing rigidly in the middle of their old training ground with his back to her and his hands fisted by his side. The Anbu uniform has torn and darkened, sticking wetly to his skin. A heady, metallic stench clings to him and his fingers are stained a dark red. Shadows from the swaying branches of nearby trees flood across the stiff set of his back. The tension is evident in the painfully taut muscles, the way his spine arches slightly and his head tilts up, a silent howl choked in, choked back. Dark tracks of dried blood the colour of rust coat the entire length of his arm.

It is not his blood that burns him.

"Neji?" she asks awkwardly from the rim of the clearing, resting a hand on a trunk that bears evidence of their more innocent past.

He doesn't answer, doesn't even turn around to meet her gaze.

"Neji," she tries again, louder this time. She steps forwards. "Neji, what are you doing here?"

"Don't come near me." His voice is cold, harsh, but his hand is shaking and she knows him well enough to detect the undercurrent of fear.

"Why?" she asks, but she knows the answer already and its breaking her heart.

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_He leans heavily against the doorway with the mask dangling between his fingertips. He's wearing his trademark smirk but it's obvious he's exhausted, bone weary from weeks of fighting. "I'm home."_

_Tenten tries to smile for him but it comes out all wrong, her lips twitching up awkwardly, humourlessly. "Hey, Neji." _

_His smirk falters a little. He pushes himself off the wall and stalks forwards, reaching out for her; Tenten braces herself for his touch but cannot help shuddering when his fingers gently trace the curve of her shoulder. He catches the involuntary flinch and freezes, fingers stiffening against her skin. _

"_Tenten?" he asks quietly, probing. "Is there something wrong?"_

"_N-nothing," she stammers, but then he moves closer, looming over her with concern etched into his features – and oh God this is Neji, she shouldn't be feeling like this but the stories she had heard, the whispered tales of mass murder, whole villages wiped out, the white-eyed genius who had destroyed an entire platoon of Mist nin before dawn– _

_Tenten had quit Anbu within two weeks of joining, having realized early on that she was simply not cut out for the job. Anbu had been reluctant to let her go – they had, after all, spent nearly a year trying to persuade the best weapons expert in Leaf to join their ranks – but the kunoichi had been adamant, knowing that she could not live as they did, could not kill as they did. Tenten was born to fight not in darkness but in light, to burn white and hot like her precious steel, quick-blooded and fierce, a tightly controlled explosion of metal. Drenched in the darkness of Anbu she had been suffocated, had grown pale under the moonlight. _

_Neji, though... ...Neji continues to thrive as one of the force's most deadly assassins, meticulous and silent in his work. He is a genius at killing and Anbu needs him, Tsunade needs him. Anbu is his life now; there is no other way. He is the moon to Tenten's sun, the darkness to her light. Tenten understands this, and yet – and yet - _

_Her eyes widen at the sight of the evidence of his kill on his torn uniform– as Kunoichi she is used to blood and gore but this is too much, his skin gleams wetly in the yellow light and she wonders how many necks had been snapped by the fingers that caress her shoulder, how many lives punctured out from broken bodies. This isn't the Neji she finds so easy to love, this is - _

"_Neji, I-"_

_- and he's too close to her now, his other hand reaching out – she takes a step back, stumbles. Neji stares at her. _

_"You are afraid of me."_

"_You – you're –what _are_ you?" Suddenly she lets out a sob and spins on her heel and all Neji can do is watch as she runs away from him, tripping up the stairs. A door slams; she locks herself in the bedroom. _

What _are _you?

_A monster._

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She takes another step forwards.

"Don't," he says again, the beginnings of panic sharpening his tone. "...Go home, Tenten."

"Not without you, I'm not."

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_Tenten collapses against the door, eyes squeezed shut. She knows she is being selfish, knows that Neji can't help but be this way – knows he is merely fulfilling his duty – but the utter brutality of his new life and the stench of decay haunts her. A muffled scream; she chokes it back in her throat and slides down to the floor, her chin on her knees. _

_She wants to love him. She wants to understand him and go back to the days when they were partners, fighting in perfect syncopation. She doesn't know whether she can cope with him, to deal with this harsh new reality. She doesn't know how to be gentle with him, to reach out to him and keep him sane in this madness, because Anbu is just that – madness – but it is madness that Neji has chosen. She doesn't know how to be kinder, to accept the cruelty that shapes his life and coarsens his hands. She doesn't know if she has the strength to stay and love him._

_Footsteps from below; she lifts her head. She hears the backdoor swing on its hinges and picks herself up, crawling onto their bed to peer out the window. _

_Neji stalks into their backyard slowly, painfully. In the darkness his skin is as white as the chrysanthemums growing by the wall, except for the streaks of crimson that glisten down his arm. He walks to the edge of the small garden and stares down at the flowers. Chrysanthemums are her favorite; she had planted them one spring a few years ago, when life made sense and to love was easy. _

_Suddenly his shoulders tense and he falls forwards, slamming a hand into the wall and resting his forehead against the concrete. His heels dig into the earth and Tenten whimpers when she sees him lift his other hand to the moonlight, dark hair slipping over an arm as he glares at his red-stained palm. It is at this moment that she truly realizes the toll Anbu has taken on him, how hard it must be for him to survive day after day, night after night of inhumanity and screaming and blood and blank gazes. How brave he is, how strong. _

_She looks down at her own hand. He kills in the dark so she can fight during the day; he takes the worst of humanity or lack of so that she can remain honourable, proud. And yet... ..._

_... ...and yet she has abandoned him. She has run away from the monster he became to protect her. _

_Tenten lets herself fall back onto the bed, blinking back tears as she stares up at the ceiling. _

_When she wakes up the next morning Neji has cleaned himself of all remnants of Anbu and greets her as usual, albeit a little stiffly. Tenten knows he doesn't blame her for last night._

"_Neji," she begins, wanting to apologize. "I'm -"_

"_I have to leave early to train with the squad," he tells her, not looking her in the eye. "I won't be back until seven."_

"..._.Oh," she says, tracing her fingers across the kitchen table. "I see."_

_She doesn't._

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"Just leave," he insists. "You cannot...you don't have to see me like this."

Her heart stops for a brief, painful moment. _I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What have I done to you? _Then she runs forwards, too quickly for him to move away; she grabs his hand and twists him around to face her. He tries to jerk his hand from her grip but she holds on tight, lunging forwards to wrap her other arm around his neck as she pulls his masked face close to hers.

"Tenten – I didn't want you to – _look at me, _I'm a – a -" His voice cracks. "I know that you don't –" She silences him with a finger on his lips.

"I don't care," she reassures him hoarsely. "I don't. I'm with you. I'm here." And suddenly there is nothing but laboured breathing and the burning of his skin on hers. "I'm with you," she murmurs comfortingly.

His mask is cracked, the painted mouth a crimson gash that snarls and cracks and bleeds. This close to him the smell of death is overwhelming; the crimson on his skin is seeping onto hers. Tenten is clinging onto a murderer, a machine that carves and breaks and kills but the eyes that stare back into hers are beautiful and white and hurting. He is shivering in her arms as she reaches up and gingerly spreads her fingers against his cheek. She slides calloused fingertips beneath the mask and he grabs her wrist, stopping her from taking it off. He moves with mechanical rigidity; gone is the easy grace, the elegance, the natural economy of movement. Tenten knows there is a long way to go before she can undo the damage she has caused – she can see it in the way his eyes question hers, can see the confusion and fear and the tiniest glimmer of hope.

"Tenten?"

"I'm sorry," she breathes. "I love you. I'm sorry."

He reaches out and strokes her cheek. "I didn't want to frighten you." He pauses and adds quietly: "Didn't want to see you disgusted by me."

_Was scared of seeing you scared of me._

Her fingers bunch tightly into the torn material of his uniform. His touch is so gentle that it makes her want to cry, makes her want to scream and howl at the world. She doesn't trust herself to speak and so she reaches up instead, tenderly disengaging her wrist from his grip and tiptoeing to cradle his face. She slips the mask off, letting it drop to the ground.

It is difficult, loving Hyuuga Neji, but she is stronger now and so she loves him anyway, loves the way he is a little broken, a toy soldier with snapped clockwork. He is damaged, but Tenten finds him and fixes him and he is one step closer to freedom – because sometimes to break free, you have to do just that: break. She wipes the war paint from his cheeks with the back of her hand and kisses the seal on his forehead. She rubs the dried blood from his skin and wraps his shoulders in her jacket, the rest in her arms. She moves slowly, gently. Neji watches in silence as she takes care of him and loves him and something softens in his face, something sparks again his eyes.

They who are not accustomed to being gentle, who do not know how to touch with a lover's caress – they who have never found the time to be kind –

- they learn.

Tenten leans in close and kisses him softly, lingeringly.

"I'm learning," she whispers against his mouth, tracing her fingertips along his jaw. "... ...I'm learning."

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_Let's go home. _


	4. Sunlight

**Written for the LJ tensquared community's 06 contest. Theme was 'Learn to fly'.**

**Sunlight**

_I'm aiming for the Sun. _

--X--

1 -

_"Hello. My name is Tenten. I hear you're a genius."_

He has the longest lashes I've ever seen and I'm not quite sure I like it that way. (It's always a little awkward when the boy is prettier than you.)

I'm not sure I like the way he smiles, either. His smile – or smirk, as I have heard others call it - is not exactly cruel; rather, it is muted, proud, something to keep the world at bay. When I see him I am reminded of a dead-end or maybe a dry, flaking wall; he conveys a suffocating sense of blankness, yet inside that wall is buried a corpse and I wonder when his face will crack - layers upon layers of ice shattering to reveal what, I don't know. Something painfully raw.

His buried grief makes me uncomfortable – usually I gravitate towards the safer, more cheerful personalities...I like simplicity, a genuine smile...I prefer happy endings.

Then I remember that his story has only just begun, and perhaps his ending can be as beautiful as he is.

--X--

- 2 -

_Sometimes Neji wonders what Tenten is thinking when she watches him train, resting in the cool shadows of a willow tree. Today he is practicing his control of chakra while on water; his feet barely graze the surface, sending gentle ripples circling out towards her figure by the shore._

Three years of training together and being teammates has made the Hyuuga appreciate the cheerful companionship of this girl. Not that he would let his hand linger too long on hers or think of her too much – his life is his clan's and he will not taint her with the dirtied blood that courses through his veins. Instinct tells him that Fate will take away anyone who comes too close to him, who means too much to him. Neji doesn't want Tenten to go away.

He tells himself she is nothing to him and secretly hopes Fate will let her stay.

The others say he is the ghost of the Hyuuga, already dead to the world; I disagree. When I see the way his fingers clench into a fist, the flush that colours his pale skin as he executes the Jyuuken – the way the red bleeds into his lips when he is upset, until I can barely resist tracing my fingers over his mouth – I know that he may be a bringer of death, a victim of death, but not so far gone as to be permanently locked in its cage. He is merely a trapped bird, maimed at birth.

The wings he will find will take him to the Sun. (And something in my heart says: take me with you. I'm in love.)

--X--

- 3 -

_She runs into the hospital room. The bed is empty. Slanting sunlight twists and flickers through the empty spaces, blindingly white, like gentle ghosts fading softly into the shadows by her feet._

__

When she finds him he is standing by the window with the most serene expression she has ever seen. "Neji... ...?"

He was bleeding too much - far too much - when they took him away. The crowd is still cheering for the blonde boy, Uzumaki. When I slip away from the stands neither Lee nor Gai notice my departure; thank God. I'm afraid. Neji...all the words he said earlier burn in my throat, reminding me that after so long, Fate still has her grasp on him...mesmerizing him in the same way he has captivated me from the very beginning. I'm afraid – fuck, I'm _terrified_. I don't know if Uzumaki has broken him once and for all.

The hospital air is cold, sterile. I find the right door and let myself in.

The smile he wears is beautiful.

--X--

- 4 -

_They ask to stay together - Team Gai. Most of the other teams have broken up, broken off. Team Gai sticks together because that is the only way they live, and because both Lee and Tenten know that Neji is not yet whole._

Today is Sunday. Neji is older now, taller. Lee – Lee, I hope, will stay young forever.

I used to think that I'm determined to help Neji purely because I love him. But that is not true; I too, have grown – grown taller, deadlier, more understanding of myself and those around me. I know that a selfish part of me cannot let go of Neji because I want to _be_ like him, as strong as him. I want him to bring me with him when he finally flies away. If he can find his heaven...then perhaps I can too. Perhaps then my goal of becoming as strong a kunoichi as Tsunade-sama will be attainable.

I know we're both a little closer to heaven when his hand lingers on mine, fingertips brushing the scars that crisscross the back of my palm. Fate doesn't suffocate him anymore; only I can take his breath away. He smiles for me and my heart soars.

Today is Sunday. Sun-day.

Today is my day of the Sun.

--X--

- 5 -

_Neji knows he is lucky – because somewhere along the way, nothing became everything. Somewhere along the way... ...he fell in love._

Sometimes he wonders why Tenten still stays with him after so long. When he doesn't think about it, their being together feels completely natural and he can't imagine living any other way. But once he put that intellect of his to use, once he really thinks it through...the idea that a pretty girl with a naturally cheerful disposition could have willingly attached herself to his problems, had cried for him as if the grief was her own...it's strange, confusing. It makes him need her even more.

One day he confronts her about it, trying to understand why she could possibly love him the way he loves her. "I was a bastard," he says, glaring down at her on their bed, propped up by his elbows.

She raises an eyebrow, stretching across the pillows lazily. "Past tense?" She pokes his chest lightly.

"Am," he amends, not taking his gaze off her. "And yet you stayed." His voice lilts up a little, unsure and almost pleading. "Will stay."

"I know. I will."

"Why?"

"Because, Neji," she tilts her head to the side, smiling. "I prefer happy endings."

He _still_ has the longest lashes I've ever seen and I hope that our daughter will inherit them. Neji says that she will probably end up turning out like me, what with the way she kicks and turns unceasingly in my body. I still train daily, of course, even though he doesn't like it. After all, I know I can become stronger yet. Fly higher yet.

In fact, I joined ANBU recently, along with my husband. For now, though, our masks lie somewhere on our shelf; forgotten, until our daughter is born and I can resume active duty. I painted the designs myself – the eagle and the kestrel.

I like to think they're quite fitting.

It's funny, really; Neji has taken up another mask now that the ice has cracked and I can finally see the face behind the grief, find the man who likes to kiss the inside of my wrist and tug my hair loose with his fingers. Who watches me when he thinks I'm asleep and tangles our feet beneath the sheets.

Our story (because now I realize that the story was never just _his_ but also mine, _ours_) hasn't ended yet, but when it does we'll be smiling. For now, happiness is like sunlight: fleeting, warm. We cherish it when we have it and we look for it again when it's gone.

It's enough.


	5. Reminiscence and Perfection

**Two drabbles. First one was written when I was in the mood for fluff; the other was written for and won a weekly challenge - theme 'Missing' - at LJ's naruto 100 community.**

Also: if anyone likes or doesn't mind smut, I recently wrote a **limey** one-shot but didn't really want to post it here. 'Thread' can be found by clicking on the homepage link on my profile (which leads to my LJ); it's listed in my memories under 'My work'.

**------------------------------------**

**Reminiscence**

**-------------------------------------**

Unexpectedly, he caught himself thinking of slim, deft fingers and small, secretive smiles – a scattering of freckles and dark lashes against tanned skin as she slept – the warm hazel of her eyes, the way she'd go perfectly, breathlessly still when he traced a finger over her lips.

Neji paused, brush poised and wetted with black ink over the scroll. The mission report was dull, a standard account that had to be sent from his post in Tea Country every week. He glanced down, frowning slightly, and re-read the last few lines:

_Ironically, the long period of peace has left the local shinobi restless. The landlord Isame Takehiro organized an archery contest, ostensibly to raise morale within the ranks but also, I suspect, with the intention of demonstrating to the Leaf – via me – their fighters' capabilities. Naturally, none of the competitors had her skill or natural grace. They held themselves too stiffly, unlike her suppleness, her ability to adapt and_

A single lantern sent shadows rippling across the lacquered wood of the low desk; he thought of the way her hair had been flung back from her face as she flew high above him, twin dragons surging up from the dusty smoke. A drop of ink converged at the tip of the brush, fell and immediately spread in a soft-rimmed circle across the rice paper; he was reminded of the pink that had stained her cheeks when he kissed her goodbye. Neji sighed, setting down the brush and standing up slowly. The thin paper door rasped when he slid it open, revealing a vast expanse of dark sky and the pale arc of a moon.

Hyuuga Neji was a hard worker but he could never keep working on nights like these, when his thoughts drifted and tangled into the place she occupied in his mind (heart, but he was much too pragmatic to ever admit it.) And he watched the foreign moon in the darkness of a stranger's courtyard because perhaps she was doing the same, curled up on her bed by the window; when he closed his eyes he could almost see the way the moonlight would wash thinly over her skin, would accentuate the soft curve of a cheek.

_Tenten, _he thought. _The moon is not bright enough to remember you by._

Because she is the Sun.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**----------------------------------------------------------------**

**Perfection is your blood on my hands**

**----------------------------------------------------------------**

_Best marksman I've seen in years, that one. Even better than her mother, and that's saying something._

They are hanging by their wrists, dangled high above the jeering crowd like broken puppets: twisted, shattered, crimson blossoming beautifully across dirtied bandages.

Tenten nocks the arrow and narrows her eyes, trying to judge the distance, the wind speed, the altitude. She is nearly out of range, hidden from the enemy on the roof top of the decaying apartment complex that overlooks the public square. Their heads hang low upon their chests, obscuring their faces from view; it's easier this way, she thinks, but it isn't easy at all and she's trying not to scream and -

And there is no saving them now, so she ignores the stinging at the back of her eyes and aims the smouldering arrowhead right at his heart, because they will dissect his body and he is too beautiful to be desecrated, too precious. He is Hyuuga, and so Tenten lets the arrow loose with the faintest thrum of the bowstring.

_You're capable of one hundred percent accuracy, huh? Good girl._

She misses. Instead she hits one of the Mist civilians watching the two prisoners slowly bleed to death; the arrow pierces the boy's abdomen and he topples backwards, loose shirt immediately setting on fire. Tenten only has seconds now before they locate her and she _must _finish her job because she knows they are in pain and she knows they are dying but too slowly, much too slowly. She aims another arrow at the second man, suddenly finding the coppery taste of blood invading her mouth when the breeze lifts his cropped hair to reveal a bloody gash where his grin used to be and she bites her tongue, hard.

_One hundred percent._

She misses again. Her hands are shaking too hard. She can do better than this (she can do _perfectly_ if she wanted to) but her fingers are traitors and obey the heart that whispers _don't don't don't_ with each heavy beat, a panicked rhythm in her chest.

_One hundred. Fucking. Percent._

But she is Kunoichi - an excellent one, and in between one second and the next she drops the self-pretense that she can't _(I can't kill them fuck, I can't)_ and instead accepts that she can _(even better than her mother, they say)_. A few of them have spotted her now, are pointing this way. Tenten straightens and grabs the two remaining arrows, accidentally scalding her fingers. She bites her lip, grips the bow tightly and fires them in quick succession; they tear into their throats abruptly, jerking broken bodies backwards so that they swing heavily in the air and then suddenly the two people she loves most on this earth are burning and blurring at the edges, eaten by the flickering tendrils of gold and thick smoke, their deaths the proof of her love.

Tenten licks the blistering skin on her fingertips and thinks: bull's-eye.

_Good girl._


	6. Navigation

Written for the awesome Toboe Lonewolf's guessing game over at the LJ Nejiten community. Prompt was: _Nature does not communicate with man by sending encoded messages._

The myth Tenten refers to is a Chinese classic; there are many variations of it, so I picked the one best suited to the purposes of the story. :)

--

**Navigation  
**

_Because even Hyuuga Neji can't shoot down the sun.  
_

--

Night was drifting down onto their clearing, remaining wisps of light bleeding into the horizon; the woods quieted and stilled, settling wearily into the dark. The air had grown cold. Neji lay on his back by her side, hooded eyes glimmering as he watched the shadows spread thickly beneath the trees.

Autumn leaves resembled dead butterfly wings on the ground: cool, brittle, colourless. They reminded him of something (they reminded him of him) and so he reached out and found her by touch, sliding his palm across her ribs, feeling the subterranean ridges arc gently beneath the light cotton of her shirt. He trailed his hand up between her breasts to slant over a collarbone before pressing his knuckles against the hot pulse at her throat, reassured by the slow, steady beat that thrummed against his fingertips. She was warm enough to thaw his coldness, bright enough to stain his white and solid enough to ground him where he needed to be (but he knew without looking that _her_ eyes were opened wide and turned unwaveringly heavenwards).

"Shooting star?"

He glanced up at the dry humour in her voice. A smoky thread of gold was streaking through the sky high above them from the direction of the village, its tip crackling with hard white sparks.

"Not a natural one," he murmured, smirking when it abruptly split into separate branches that were flung out into the darkness like a vast, glittering net. Naruto must have accidentally set off the fireworks three hours early. (He wondered briefly how the most powerful shinobi in the village could also be the most tragically inept.) Tenten sucked in a breath when they erupted simultaneously, molten gold exploding into numerous miniature suns.

"One, two, three…." She counted each crest, staring almost reverentially as they lit up the sky and turned the night momentarily into day. "...Eight. Nine. Ten." One for each gruelling month since the last of the legendary Sannin had been killed and Konoha was dragged kicking and screaming out of wartime devastation by the current Rokudaime. _Remember_, they said. _Remember the Godaime, remember what she died for, remember how far you have come and the distance yet to go._ Neji felt something constrict in his chest when he saw the look on her face, the rapt attention and wordless longing that told him this part of Tenten was untouchable, even by him, even now. At barely nineteen years of age they had already watched the destruction of their village and fought tooth and nail to resurrect it from the ashes – but there was still so much to do, so much ambition to fulfill, and Tenten had always chased after far too many suns in her sky.

"I saw you training yesterday with the Aburame." He spoke evenly, as if stating a fact, but knew she would understand what he was really asking. Tenten never used to train with anyone outside of Team Gai; it was tradition, after all, for her to ask him – and _only_ him - to spar when Lee and Gai were unavailable. Even after he had started training with Hiashi she had never strayed away; Neji knew his uneasiness was irrational and unfair but he couldn't help but feel threatened anyway, as if she had slipped out of his reach, drifting towards a place far from him.

"Shino's kikaichu are a challenge for my techniques," she told him firmly, unapologetic, her face still turned to the sky. "Normal blades are too thick to damage targets of their size and number. He was helping me find ways to overcome those snags." She had seen him in the distance when she leaped into the dusk, had noticed the stiff set of his shoulders as he looked up at her spinning silhouette while she trained with Shino. _Traditions can be broken, Neji, and there are better things to be shackled to than the past._

A pause. "I see." But his hand slid down her arm, circling around her wrist more tightly than necessary. Tenten let him.

After a moment she finally turned to face him, leaning gently into the length of his body. "As legend goes," she began tentatively, pausing to kiss the skin at his shoulder left bare by his ANBU uniform; Neji knew she was referring to the stories that belonged to the land her clan inhabited before they migrated West to Konoha. "At the beginning, there existed ten suns in the sky." She shifted, pressed her lips lightly to his cheek. "The combined heat and blinding light was too much. The earth was scorched dry and it became difficult and painful to live in those conditions. To save the world, an archer named Hou Yi took his arrows and shot down the suns, one at a time." Another kiss, this time sweetly on the mouth. Neji closed his eyes. "But after the ninth sun was gone, Hou Yi put down his bow. The last sun was the furthest away but he spared it not because it was too difficult to shoot; he spared it because while having too many suns was destructive, we need at least one to survive."

He knew what she was trying to say. It left something hollow in him, the prolonged silence between each ticking of snagged clockwork.

"You've helped me achieve so many of my goals already, Neji." Her voice was soft. It was true: their duet had strengthened her over the years and honed her skill, had given her the respect and admiration of her fellow shinobi, the status as the best weapons-user in the country, given her the rank of jounin and then ANBU, given her _him_. She brushed his hair away from his forehead, exposing his hitae-ate. "But I need to have this." Because even Hyuuga Neji couldn't shoot down this last sun in her sky, this pervading dream to be even better than she was now, even faster and smoother and sharper.

There was only so much that she could learn training with the same person over and over again. After a while she had to move on to find new and challenging terrain, _terra incognita_ to map and explore and conquer. Neji had gone on to study with his uncle. Tenten drifted restlessly, wandering everywhere, trying to learn anything and everything she could about her steel.

"I need this," she repeated. "_You_ need this. Lee, Hinata, Naruto….they all do." But strength was relative, not a static state of being. There would always be the possibility of becoming stronger and even stronger then; they who navigated by the sun knew it was unreachable yet chased it anyway because there was nowhere else to run, no brighter star in the sky. Neji understood this perfectly, but it left him uncomfortable because it meant that there would always be this hardness inside of her, this untouchable core he could never call his own, something bright in her life that might just lead her where he could not follow.

There was only one thing he needed to know.

"And when night falls?" Because this sun was forever, yet every sun will set at the end of the day to leave the earth resting in the darkness that stretches before dawn. His face was impassive but Tenten recognized the faintest tension around his eyes that betrayed his worry. She smiled softly, leaning closer to whisper in his ear.

"I'll come back." _Always._ It was ironic, in a way: no matter how far they wandered apart in the light they would always find each other again in the dark.

He was still for a long moment. Tenten could hear music and the continuous murmur of the crowds, muffled by the distance; the anniversary festivities must be in full swing by now in the village. She preferred the quiet of his company.

Then Neji finally slackened his grip on her wrist, fingers uncurling slowly, letting her free to move away. Tenten pulled her hand up so her palm rested on his instead, and when he spoke his voice was steady, gentle, unafraid. "Thank you."

_I'll be waiting._


	7. On the Importance of Tea

So I figured it was about time that I wrote a Neji-proposes-and-they-settle-down-to-domestic-felicity-and-live-happily-ever-after fic. (I know, I know, but I needed to get it out of my system somehow...)

Warning: high dosages of sappiness and general fluff ahead. Approach with caution.

* * *

**On the Importance of Tea**

His love came almost as an afterthought.

_She is a good teammate,_ he reflected one morning, watching her go through the warm up stretches at the edge of their training grounds. _More than good; the best I could have asked for. _

_And I love her, perhaps. _

He wrapped the final layer of bandaging around his wrist. _Probably. _

A tight, efficient knot. _Alright, definitely. (Who are you trying to fool, Hyuuga Neji.)_

Then he had smirked to himself, and Tenten had told him to quit being a cocky asshole and start moving quick or she was going to make him her personal human pincushion, got it?

Unlike Shikamaru, who sullenly realized he was doomed the moment Temari blinded him with her feral, sharp toothed grin after rescuing him from Tayuya, it took Neji years of partnership to recognize in himself a steady, deep-seated affection for Tenten that spilled over the safer confines of friendship and gently flooded the backdrop of his consciousness: vast, silver, the rippling quiet of a subterranean lake. He wasn't _in love _with her, but then again – the Hyuuga were not a breed who developed a taste for such things. In the long run, through the generations strung like prayer beads along the years, their love was smoother, broader, steadier, thick ink brushstrokes dragged firmly across rice paper and not mere droplets exploding onto the scroll with temporary ferocity. Even Hinata's helpless infatuation with Naruto eventually simmered down into something warmer, subtler and kinder, like sunlight.

Of course, being Hyuuga Neji, it took him another five years after the aforementioned realization of his affections to do anything official about it, his saving grace being only that once started he proceeded to go straight for the kill with a characteristic inability to see the point of such things as romantic courtship. So saying, he gave her a tea set for her twenty-first birthday: a blue tinted teapot of bone china with a varnished bamboo handle, delicate tea leaf filters and two tiny, perfect enamelled cups nestled in thin, creamy tissue paper. Tenten knew immediately that there was something terribly wrong, or terribly right, depending on whether her intuition regarding his intentions was correct. She had known – or hoped, a little scared – that _this_ had always only been a matter of time, and yet it still surprised her to find him sitting before her on the living room floor of her apartment, cross legged, regarding her calmly over an elegant tea set for two. Some things you wait for so long that waiting becomes a habit, becomes comfortable, and when what you crave for comes you find that you really don't know what to do with it, this sudden gift in your hands.

She stared at the simple domesticity of his present, the two of them half cast in the soft lilac shadows of a Konohan spring morning. She remembered his other birthday gifts from previous years, an assortment of blades and explosives and scrolls, whetting stones, scabbards, decorative swords. Now she picked up one of the cups, running a fingertip along its smooth, cool rim and admiring the watercolour mandarin ducks painted onto the porcelain.

"And what do you propose I do with these, Neji?" she asked with feigned nonchalance, setting it carefully back onto the low table between them. Her heart lurched erratically against her ribcage when he smiled at her and leaned across almost conspiratorially, his breath fanning out lightly against her cheek:

"I propose that you make tea……for the two of us. Every morning, from now on." _Marry me._

He'd always had her beside him on the battlefield, but now he wanted her in his home. He'd always had Tenten the kunoichi, but now he wanted Tenten the woman, the wife.

"Is - is that so?" She looked away with deliberate coolness, swallowing when she felt him cradle her chin with his fingers. He had been consciously gentle with her outside of missions for years but this was different, this was the first time he had ever allowed himself to touch her this way and it burned her skin like embers. "I don't think I'm very good at making tea, though. Do you remember when we were fourteen and you made me join you in that deathly boring tea ceremony your uncle threw during the summer festival? I ended up drifting off to sleep and spilling my whole cup down my kimono." Her voice hitched when he stroked a knuckle along her jaw line. "I don't think your uncle was very pleased."

"He wasn't," he replied, turning her face so that their lips barely ghosted over each other, "but we're not fourteen anymore."

"No," she agreed distractedly, and when he kissed her she slid her fingers along the back of his neck and pulled him in tightly, thinking _yes, I will, I'll make tea every morning if those mornings will be ours, I'll do it, I'll marry you, I will, I will if it's you._

_- _X -

It turned out, after the marriage ceremony and their settling into a bigger apartment near the Hyuuga compound, that Neji would be the one to prepare the tea. Tenten's proficiency in the matter had never really improved since they were fourteen and during their first few mornings together she had ended up burning her fingertips with scalding water and hot porcelain, crying out and pouting and pressing them softly against her husband's mouth for him to kiss and nibble at soothingly. A very amused Neji eventually took over the job completely and from then on he woke up early, slipping gently out of their bed to get the water boiling in the kitchen.

One morning he realized, as an afterthought, that he had grown to love commencing the day by watching Tenten take shallow sips of hot tea, fingers wrapped carefully around a porcelain cup, face outlined sparsely by the soft glimmers of light seeping into the room.

"What are you smirking at?" His wife peered at him suspiciously. Neji only shook his head.

"It's nothing."

"Oh, really?" She narrowed her eyes at his dismissive tone. "It's been a while since I've used you as a pincushion, hasn't it? Don't think I won't dare to embarrass you in front of your genins, Hyuuga Neji, I'll-"

"Hn." He chuckled, placating her with a strategic kiss on the lips. When he moved away Tenten's cheeks were faintly tinged with red and she gave him a half hearted glare, the effect of which was utterly diminished by the small smile she failed to hide behind her tea cup. She rolled her eyes.

"I'll let you off this time," she told him imperiously, pretending not to notice his bemused expression.

A long pause. They watched the shadows glide slowly across the table. It would be time to prepare for work soon.

"Mmm. Good tea. Jasmine?"

"Lotus. I thought I'd try some from the gypsy dealers."

She took another sip. "I like it."

"Hn."

They settled back into the silence, smiling.


	8. Blindness

Okay I lied. Didn't manage to get the fluff out of my system so here, have more sap. Heh.

* * *

**Blindness**

Mid-afternoon. The two of them stop for their customary break, tugging at their clothes to lessen the heat of the spar. It's a warm day, humid and bright; wild lavender sways on the periphery of their clearing and sends a heavy sweetness drifting through the long grass.

Neji carefully settles himself down in the shade, reties his hair neatly and closes his eyes to meditate. Tenten sprawls on her back beside him with a long sigh.

"Isn't it hot, Neji?"

Neji doesn't reply. Tenten nonchalantly rolls onto her front, casually pulling scattered kunai towards her with chakra strings that glint thinly in the sunlight. She hums quietly, a ridiculous tune currently popular with civilian grandmothers and completely inappropriate for a kunoichi about to turn eighteen in two months.

"I want dumplings," she informs him, and lazily slips a stalk of grass between her teeth. Neji remains perfectly still. His eyes sting slightly with the afterburn of the byakugan; for a moment the world is blessedly dark and he cannot see anything. He does not want to see anything. He hears Tenten play with a few pebbles next to him, hears her voice break on the highest note, her light cough. He hears the faint whipping sound her steel makes as she retrieves them and gathers up her scrolls, and he knows when exactly she pauses to untie her hair: first the left bun, then the right, with a quick shake of the head to loosen the coils down her back. There's a faint rustling as she tucks the ribbons into the dip of her collar, fingers sliding discreetly against her cleavage, and Neji sternly instructs his mind not to go there.

"I'll make dumplings for us later," she says.

He still doesn't reply and his eyes remain shut, but he knows that she is curled on her side now with her head on her arm, facing him, resting and waiting.

"I'll make it with the sour plum sauce you liked last time, Neji, if you help me tidy up my apartment tomorrow?" Her voice is coaxing, playful. Her apartment resembles the lovechild of an industrial landfill and a weapons museum. _(Now children, look to your left to see the biggest war hammer you will never need. Mind the booby traps on the floor, sweetie. Yes, the one in front of the fridge.)_ "Please?"

Neji refrains from snorting. He is, after all, supposed to be meditating.

A brief moment of quiet. Neji breathes in slowly, counts: one; two; three. He breathes out: one; two; three. Tenten starts humming again.

"Neji?"

His next exhalation comes out as a long suffering sigh. "Hn."

"Neji, you're smiling."

A pause. "Am I."

He is.


	9. A Gentle Precipice

**A Gentle Precipice**

When they are genin, before life turns complicated and in turn complicates them, Team Gai witnesses a civilian woman dying in the hospital. She is very old and small, wisps of white hair softly framing her face. Her husband sits by the bed and holds her hand tightly in his. His back is bent with age and a resigned sadness, heavy and gentle, a visible ache in the steep curvature of his spine. Team Gai does not mean to intrude on what they instinctively understand to be a private moment, but the door to the ward is cracked open just enough to allow a view from the corridor, and they have been assigned to guard a potentially violent patient in the next room. Death by old age is a novelty to them and they cannot help but snatch quick, curious glances as the old man bends to kiss his dying wife on the lips, hand never leaving hers.

When he raises his head they are surprised to see that she is smiling faintly.

"Goodbye," she says. She is tired and frail, but her words are not. "I love you."

"Goodbye." The old man's voice cracks on the last syllable. He squeezes her hand and steadies himself. "I love you too."

A passing nurse notices the open door and hurriedly closes it, casting a warning look at the genin. They look away guiltily.

When their shift ends and they leave the hospital it is already dark, brittle leaves skittering along the ground in the sharp autumn wind. Tenten absentmindedly reties her buns and says, a little callously, "Don't you think that's a nice way to die?"

Lee looks at her with solemn round eyes. "To die in the warm embrace of a loved one is a beautiful stroke of luck, Tenten, but surely we must strive to die gloriously, in the service of Konoha."

"Hmm." Tenten is not entirely convinced. She thinks of the way the old couple had held hands even in the face of death and sighs a little. "I know, but it seems kinder, somehow, to everyone involved. I hope I will have a husband who will do that for me when I die."

"Do what?" Neji asks coolly, looking straight ahead as they walk down the stone steps and into the street.

"Love me a lot and be there with me, I guess. Hold my hand." Suddenly she is embarrassed by her childish show of sentimentality and girlishness, she who has fought to prove herself the equal of any boy since her Academy days. Husband? Why was she talking about _husbands _when she had barely begun serving as a kunoichi? And in front of _Neji, _too, talented, cold Neji, broken genius Neji. She flushes. "I'm being silly. Forget it."

Neji is frowning. "Marriage is not a sensible choice for people like us."

"No." Tenten concedes the point obediently.

"It makes things needlessly complicated," he continues. He is thinking of his own mother and her heartbreak upon his father's death, of the career she had abandoned for familial duty after buckling to the pressures of Hyuuga tradition. The palpable resentment that still seeps from behind her quiet, reserved demeanor. Tenten shows promise of being a good kunoichi, he thinks. It would be a waste. He does not even bother to consider marriage in relation to himself: he will not marry. He has far too many things to do and females do not interest him in that way. "There is no point, anyway. Unless you want to have a family, I suppose." And families, he thinks, are overrated.

Tenten says nothing and quells the irrational little flutter of disappointment in her chest. Neji is already distinctly handsome in his early adolescence, in a bird-like, fine-boned way. He is by far the best fighter in their year, and his arrogance and haughtiness are still alluring qualities to most girls in their age group. Secretly Tenten hopes that she might marry one day, whatever Neji says, and even more secretly she hopes that it might be Neji who turns out to be her husband. She is twelve, and _love _and _marriage _and _death _are still abstract concepts to her, distant and shapeless, weightless. They will stay that way when she turns seventeen and Neji kisses her softly under the shadows of an old fir tree, slipping his hand into the small of her back and smiling into her lips. Love then will be easy, and easy love will not quite fill out _real _love, the heavy concept of love, not yet. She will contemplate the prospect of one day getting married more easily and without embarrassment, because marriage will finally appear natural, like the way their partnership will deepen into friendship, and then more. Death will painfully, suddenly solidify in her consciousness when Gai dies in the war, while she desperately pumps chakra into his chest through clumsy fingers and Neji nearly cries through his Byakugan, telling her futilely where the bleeding stems from and oh god sensei is dying, right here in front of her, sensei will be dead, _dead, _and why had she not trained to be a medic-nin like Sakura, why why why?

* * *

In the end, Neji and Tenten never marry.

This is due to a combination of three reasons. One of them is timing: there simply is not enough breathing space in between each mission and the next, each war and the next, for them to sit down and hold hands and make plans involving marital bliss. (They do not, in any case, grow up to be the type to hold hands.)

The second reason is Neji's unwillingness to bind Tenten into the blind rigidity of the Hyuuga household. Despite Hinata's best efforts as clan head after the first war of their generation, the branch system is abolished in name but never completely in reality; a certain sense of hierarchy still subtly structures relations within the clan, a subterranean vein of bitterness that he knows has no place in Tenten's life. Neji has always protected Tenten, after all.

And then there is the sheer fact that Tenten refuses to marry him the first and only time Neji proposes, when they are twenty-three and Hinata has just assumed her role as clan head. The first war had ended eight months prior; an overwhelming sense of relief eclipses the exhausting heartbreak and fury that had crippled Konoha, and hope is pushing up through the torn earth like spring flowers, fragile and bright. Neji is quietly grateful that he, Tenten and Lee have survived relatively unscathed, even if the loss of Gai still makes him feel unanchored, a hollow grief carved deeply into his body. Lee is still unable to run, but Sakura says that the damage will not be permanent. Tenten is thankfully recovered from her own injuries, and he himself has almost returned to his prime. Hinata has promised him the abolishment of the branch system, and Neji badly needs to believe that there will be something good to work for, something that will be worth fighting for when the next inevitable war comes. After the chaos of the war he finds himself seeking certainty and – dare he say it – tradition, even if it be the clan formalities that he once bitterly hated. So he picks a (nowadays rare) moment when he and Tenten are alone, helping out with the rebuilding effort in a more remote part of Konoha.

Tenten is in the process of painting a set of newly constructed fences when Neji asks, almost conversationally: "What do you think of an autumn wedding?"

"An autumn _what_?"

"Wedding. An autumn wedding," he repeats patiently, his face calm as he watches her from the other side of the fence.

Tenten frowns. "Like – in general? Autumn weddings in general? Or –" Abruptly she realizes what _or _would imply and bites her tongue.

"No, not in general." Still that infuriatingly calm demeanor from Neji. "For us. Our wedding."

"Neji, are you – are you _proposing_?" Tenten stares at him, paintbrush clutched tightly in her hand. Green paint drips onto the ground, staining the soil the colour of moss.

He swallows, a brief hint of nervousness that is quickly eliminated. His expression is smooth and confident when he replies. "Yes. Do you want to marry me?"

"Well – I – this is very sudden."

"It is," he agrees unapologetically.

A pause.

"You've been – with me – for six years. Seven, next month," he points out helpfully.

She blushes. "Yes."

"Do you want to marry me?" he asks again mildly, simply.

"Neji," she says. "I –"

He waits, an eyebrow raised.

"Well, no." She tightens her grip on the paintbrush, knuckles draining white.

"Oh," Neji says.

"I don't. I'm sorry, Neji," she rushes to add, "It's not that I don't – love you. I do. Love you."

"I know."

"So much," she says shakily, almost laughing, "but it's just – look at this," she implores, gesturing to the buildings around them that are barely half-standing, the deep gouges in the landscape that remain despite the time that has passed since the end of the war. "Everything and everyone are still in pieces, even now. We still have so much work to do. _I _have so much work to do. The war, it – it made me realize how much stronger I still need to be, if I am to protect everyone." _I could not protect Gai-sensei_, she thinks. "I want to work. I want to concentrate on working."

"I see," Neji says, and he really does see, even if it hurts. Pain does not blind him anymore.

"I'm sorry," Tenten says again, biting her lip. "Are you angry at me, Neji?"

"No." He realizes that he had been frowning and softens his gaze. "…..Disappointed, perhaps. But I'm not angry at you." He awkwardly lifts his hand and brushes her cheek. "I understand."

She smiles just as awkwardly and leans into his touch. "Marriage is not a sensible choice for people like us, remember?" she quotes his childhood phrase wryly, and Neji thinks (not for the first time) that he really was a huge fool when he was younger, wasn't he?

Yet even through the disappointment it is clear that Tenten does love him; she has never given him reason to doubt that, and he is immensely grateful for it. Neji is rational and self-controlled enough to know that she is not rejecting him so much as the implications of security and comfort that come with marriage. Tenten does not believe that she deserves to feel secure and comfortable, to have the promise of someone holding her hand tightly when she dies. Not when she has so much left to do, so much further to go, so many to protect.

"Besides," she adds gently, taking his hand in hers and softly kissing his knuckles, "there's always later. When things calm down, get better. When I've gotten stronger."

He smiles. "Later, then," he says, leaning forwards and kissing her on the lips.

* * *

_Later _never materializes. Four years after the first war, the second breaks out and lasts for three years. There is a fragile peace for seven years after that, during which Team Gai join and serve in ANBU.

The third war lasts for five years. Tenten dies in the fourth. The poison blackening the blood in her veins burns her consciousness to the edge of oblivion. Lee has ran off to find help, and Neji hates his Byakugan more than anything he has ever hated because it tells him that Lee will not make it in time. The nearest allied team is at least an hour's run away. Tenten faces another half hour of mind-numbing agony before certain death, and he knows she is trying her best not to scream, to give their location away.

"Neji," she gasps, thinking: _we must die gloriously, in the service of Konoha. _

_Goodbye, Lee._

"It will be okay, Tenten," Neji tells her, but he is crying, Neji is crying, talented, cold Neji, broken genius Neji. (Except Tenten knows by now that he really is not that cold, not at all, and he is no longer broken either, thank god.)

"It hurts so much, Neji," she whispers.

"You'll be fine." His voice is hoarse. "I love you, Tenten."

Shuddering, her strong, lithe body wracked helplessly by the poison, she hands him one of her remaining blades. "I love you."

He knows what he has to do. Tenten is in too much pain; it would be cruel not to do it. Selfish, to keep her alive for as long as possible for his own sake. Neji is rational, too rational, and he curses his rationality as he bends down and kisses her on the lips, hard. Her lips are chapped and she returns the kiss warmly despite the pain. When he lifts his head he sees that she is smiling, calmer now.

"Goodbye, Neji."

He takes a deep breath and smiles for her. "Goodbye, Tenten."

He holds her hand when he kills her. As the blade slides cleanly into her throat and her face tenses, then relaxes with death, he keeps his hand tightly wrapped around hers, brushing a thumb reassuringly over her knuckles. Her fingers are curled into his palm.

_Later, _he promises the both of them. _I'll find you later._

* * *

This time _later _comes in only a year, in the final months of the third war. Neji and Lee die together defending Konoha, a village they still love but have grown weary of. Their deaths are quick and without bitterness. Tenten is waiting, after all.

* * *

Late autumn: the wind bites sharply into their ANBU uniforms. There are still three years until the beginning of the third war, the fourth year of peace since the second. Neji and Tenten rest on the lower branches of a large oak, masks off for a brief moment of respite. Lee is near the top of the tree on look-out shift. Neji is about to drift off into a tenuous sleep, listening to Tenten's even breathing as she lies on the branch above his.

Then: "I think autumn weddings are nice. I like the idea."

Her voice is soft but firm, sweetened with a hint of flirtation. He opens his eyes, pale glimmers in the dark. There is a long pause as Neji thinks about what she has said. Suddenly she spins and leans down so that her face is inches away from his, strands of her hair falling in soft curls.

"What do you think of them, Neji?"

He smiles. "You mean in general? Or…?"

She laughs girlishly, something she has kept on from her childhood, and kisses him in reply.

Tenten is stronger now. Love is no longer easy, and all the more precious for it. She never does answer him properly, but Neji does not mind: he has realized a long time ago that marriage is not that important, clan tradition and formalities are not that important, not when it comes to him and Tenten; they will not give him the certainty that he no longer craves.

At the end of the day (week, month, year, life – ) he finds that there is no need to define what he knows has always been there, safe and secure and precious in his grasp. There has always been something good to fight for.


End file.
